wife. Maybe Di Tivoli is doing the opposite, getting back at the wife on Clemente’s behalf. Whatever the case, I don’t see any connection with the Nicotra sex scandal, and neither do you. You just want me to get back into the case, but I told you, I can’t.”
“OK. What about Innocenzi, then?” said Blume.
Principe sighed. “What about him?”
“I don’t know,” said Blume. “Just a thought.”
“So you’re giving up on the idea that it was this Pernazzo character?”
“No,” said Blume. “Maybe Innocenzi used Pernazzo to kill Clemente.”
“Innocenzi decides not to use anyone from his army of killers, and sends in a first-timer, a slasher, someone who was going to leave trace evidence everywhere and would probably not know any better than to confess to everything and implicate Innocenzi when caught? Is that what you’re trying to say, Alec?”
“All right, what about Alleva? Maybe Alleva hired Pernazzo. Alleva gets people into debt, makes them do things.”
“Women. He makes women do things. Young women. The wives, girlfriends, daughters of weak men. And what I said about Innocenzi applies to Alleva, too. Why would a criminal use an amateur? Innocenzi’s got his army, Alleva’s got Massoni. Nobody needs Pernazzo.”
“Di Tivoli?” said Blume.
“Di Tivoli hired Pernazzo?” Principe paused. “I suppose that would work. Apart from the fact I see no motivation whatsoever. Have you got any point of convergence between them?”
“They both attended dog fights run by Alleva.”
“It’s not much, though, is it?” said Principe.
“No, it’s not.” Blume felt exhausted. “I’m going to hang up in case Paoloni’s trying to call.”
28
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 11 A.M.
A beeping sound woke him up. By the time he reached the kitchen, he had registered that his phone was recharged and ringing and Kristin was gone. He felt as if he had been drinking cheap grappa for a week. His bandaged arm throbbed, and as he reached out for the phone, he felt that the movement would snap his neck like a dry stick. As he touched the phone, it stopped trembling and beeping.
Blume swayed over to the refrigerator, yanked it open and gazed at the desolation within. He removed a blue lemon and a black onion, and dropped them into the plastic bag below his sink. He carried the half-finished carton of milk with him into the bathroom, poured the yellow and green slop inside into the toilet bowl then pissed on top of the swirling mix. He stood there fascinated for a while, before flushing, washing his one functioning hand and returning to the kitchen for a breakfast of dry Rice Krispies. He had never noticed how salty they were without milk.
Caller ID had been withheld on the last call. Blume looked through the menu, but found no trace of any communication from Paoloni. He put down his cereal spoon and thumbed in Paoloni’s number which he knew by heart, but got a message saying the number was unavailable and offering to send a text message to tell him when it became available again. In Blume’s experience, this service had never worked, but he keyed in the digit 5 as instructed. Telecom Italia thanked him.
The salty cereal gave him enough energy to find more food in the house. After several boiled eggs, two pots of coffee, and four friselle steeped in olive oil, he felt better. Still no text message to say Paoloni was available.
Blume phoned the office, asked to be patched through to wherever Paoloni was, but was told Paoloni was on leave. They tried the same number Blume had been using, with the same result.
Although he didn’t like to have to ask, Blume said, “I don’t suppose you heard anything about a guy called Pernazzo getting arrested, did you?”
The sovrintendente at the desk had Blume repeat the name. Blume could picture him shaking his oversized shaggy head and blinking his two pin-hole eyes as he tried to think. “No,” he said eventually. “No Pernazzo got brought in. I heard nothing. Maybe he was brought to a different com-missariato?”
Blume thanked him, and was about to hang up when the sovrintendente seemed to be struck with a bright thought.
“Do you want to talk to the vicequestore?”
“He’s there in his office?”
“No. But I can connect you to his cell phone if you want.”
“No, it’s OK. Thanks,” said Blume.
“No problem.”
Blume hung up, opened the dishwasher to put away his plate, and found it was full of clean stuff already. Rather than empty the dishwasher, he washed his plate and cereal bowl, using his one hand at the kitchen sink, and soaked himself. Fine. He needed a shower anyhow.
He waited for the water to warm, then stood beneath the dribble seeping out from the lime-encrusted showerhead and lathered shampoo into his scalp. The phone rang again.
As he reached the kitchen, naked and dripping, it stopped. Once more, caller ID had been withheld. Paoloni was probably calling from an unregistered phone. Or maybe it was a call from behind a switchboard. Then it could be Kristin, calling him from her office in the embassy. He sat down at the kitchen table to dry out and wait for the next call.
Ten minutes later, the phone started ringing, slightly freaking him out since he had just then been staring at it and willing it to do exactly that.
It was Sveva Romagnolo. She wanted to see him now.
Blume said, “Your caller ID is hidden.”
“I know. I’m not sure how to change the setting. Why? Is it a problem?”
“I suppose not.”
She asked where they should meet.
“I don’t know,” said Blume, annoyed. “You’re the one wants to meet. I didn’t even say I would meet you today. You decide.”
“I need a place where I won’t be seen.”
Blume said, “So this is to be a secret meeting?”
“Not secret. I just don’t want to bump into anyone I know. I prefer it that way.”
“Do you know anyone on Via Appia Nuova?”
Not that she could think of, so Blume made an arrangement to meet her in an hour at a bar five minutes from his house. If she wanted to go somewhere she wouldn’t be known, she may as well come over to his zone of the city, to where he liked to hang out at breakfast, eating some mighty fine pastries with pistachio filling. He checked his appearance in the mirror and detached the whiplash collar, tossing it on the hall table. It made him look like an idiot.
When Blume arrived the barman was putting out trays of lunchtime sandwiches. The pistachio pastries were long gone. Blume had two ring donuts and a sandwich while he waited. He hoped she would arrive before the lunchtime crowd did.
She came in the door at the same time as a crowd of workers from the Banca di Agricoltura next door, but unmistakably not part of them. Blume found it hard to work out how certain women did this. They stood out from others without seeming to wear clothes that were particularly different, in this case a yellow silk blouse with a Chinese collar, a fawn skirt, strange sandal-shoes of the same color that looked like a child might wear them, a shoulder bag. Not too much makeup. Clean, unfussy, simple, and somehow visibly wealthy. Maybe it was the way she moved.
She sat down on a chair opposite him that he had already had to defend twice as the place filled up. The noise level rose as the bank staff took their seats, joshed with each other.
“Can I get you anything?” offered Blume.
